Tuesday, November 28, 2006

AP Homework Journal Hamlet

To what extent do parents have the right to "spy" or check up on their children? What circumstances allow or prevent this?

6 comments:

laurenesme said...

This is a test to see where students work will go.

Reynold said...

Parents have the right to check up on their kids. Their kids are the ones who will carry one their legacy and their children have the right to safety. Parents are the ones who make sure that their children are safe from not only physical hurt but emotional pain of being broken hearted and depressed like Hamlet. He needs Ritalin. On a serious note it I feel that Polonius has the right to check up on his son and test his faith. He should be able to observe the will of the one who is to carry on his legacy. On a modern note parents should be aware of what their children do especially online. Many parents let their children surf the web and join social cites and they don't monitor their children. Their children could get hurt physically and emotionally because of this. Polonius is doing the right thing by monitoring his son, but testing his son maybe a little too much. Some tests of good moral are essential but you shouldn't try to trick your son into a bad situation and then see if will get out of it. Polonius isn't God he shouldn't test his son in order to judge him.

Luz said...

I think that parents do have the right to spy on their children. Because its the parents responsibility to keep their children safe. kids are blind to the dangers of the outside world so they need someone to protect them eventhough the parents might be intruding in their kids life. I think that its a good thing that the king and queen are checking on Hamlet. They are worried about Hamlet and they need to know why he is acting crazy. I agreee with reynold on how polonius is being an idiot. He shouldnt trick his son into a problem.It proves that he doesnt trust his son. polonius has the right to spy on him but not the right to decieve his own son.

laurenesme said...

hhhm, Reynold you have some really interesting and contradictory thoughts there. True, parents do want to see what will happen to their children and of course they are concerned for their well-being and safety. They are also legally responsible for their children and if something bad happens to the child, they can be held reponsible.
Interesting too, is the idea that parents have to monitor children's online usage. That is so hard when the whole online world is in a sense, an illusion. What is great and awful about the internet, is that you can pretend to be whomever you wish to be. So, how can parents be responsible for that? Nice observation that Polonious is maybe going too far...but what specifically are you referring to when you say this?

laurenesme said...

Who is Polonius the father of? HMMMM?

Anonymous said...

Yoscar Ogando
AP English
11/28/06

To what extent do parents have the right to "spy" or check up on their children? What circumstances allow or prevent this?

This is not a question of “to what extent” but about how much trust. The relationship a child has with his/her parent can justify to what extent the parents can “spy” on them. If a child’s relationship with his parents is trustless, the parents are justified to spy on them out of concern, meaning that a parent can’t spy for any reason. In Hamlet, Polonius sent Reynaldo to Laertes to temp his behavior, to see what kind of man he really was. Even though Polonius’ relationship with his son is good, he send allusions and misleading characters towards him, this isn’t entirely wrong. Polonius is a high ranked man, royalty, it makes sense that he would want to really know who his son is because he would carry the family name and fortune. But, in modern times this is not the case. Parents aren’t spying on their children because of their future inheritance, but because of their fear of what their doing or who their socializing with. If one’s relationship with their parents’ is trustful then there is no need for spying.